Ubuntu 12.10 has been released, sporting the rather... Interesting tagline 'Avoid the pain of Windows 8'. Two main features are that websites can now be treated as actual applications, integrating them into Unity. The divide between local and online content when searching has also been softened, which, they claim, makes it easier to find what you're looking for. On the server side, it includes the Folsom release of OpenStack, "Cinder, for block storage and Quantum, a virtual networking API. Ubuntu's Metal-as-a-Service bare-metal provisioning tool has been updated and now supports Calxeda hyperscale hardware based on ARM".

You may have had good experiences with Linux, but your experiences aren't universal.

I'm not claiming that everyone will have the problems with Linux that I've had. Unlike you I'm not trying to generalise my experiences and make sweeping claims based on them. All I'm saying is that my experience of Linux doesn't come close to matching the easy to use and trouble free operating system that you're promoting. "

Sigh! Read what is being said.

If you want Linux and an easy to use and trouble free desktop operating system, you are going about it the wrong way. What you need to do is to duplicate the way you get a Windows system. You need to get hold of a system that will run Linux flawlessly. You can do this in either of two ways ...

1. you can get a Linux LiveUSB of the operating system you intend to use, and try it on the hardware you intend to use. This is not optimal, but it might work.

2. you can get a system for which the supplier is prepared to sell you Linux pre-installed. This is what you do for Windows, is it not? This is the only fair comparison, like for like, between the ease of maintenance and upkeep of desktop Linux compared with desktop Windows, BTW.

Now, once again, the distribution you choose is important. Scientific Linux is not a general purpose, ease-of-use-focussed distribution, it is made by CERN to control the LHC I believe. Hardly what a typical desktop user wants.

So, once again, to compare apples with apples, we need to compare the Linux OS which suppliers are prepared to pre-install. This is just about always Ubuntu.

Finally, the point about the number of packages available in repositories is crucial. For my Kubuntu 12.10 system, there are over 60,000 packages available in repositories. More importantly, every single package that I use on the system is available in repositories. Every single one.

This means that the single auto-updater, called muon updater, can automatically monitor all repositories, detect updated versions, notify, and update every single package on my desktop system, including muon itself.

You can't do that for Windows. Windows is a pig to maintain compared to a proper desktop Linux system.